Archive for July, 2008
Wall Street Gains As Oil Prices Fall, Banks Recover
NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks rose modestly on Wednesday amid another sharp decline in crude oil prices and an extension of the improbable rally in beaten-down banking shares.
Analysts said the market also got a lift from prospects for passage of a major housing relief bill after the White House dropped its threat of a veto.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 29.88 points (0.26 percent) to close at 11,632.38 and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite rose 21.92 points (0.95 percent) to 2,325.88.
The broad-market Standard & Poor’s 500 index added 5.19 points (0.41 percent) to finish at 1,282.19.
A big factor for Wall Street was another sharp decline in crude oil futures. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for September delivery, dropped a hefty 3.98 dollars to close at 124.44 dollars a barrel.
Meanwhile, the S&P bank index was up 1.6 percent, extending the surprising rebound for the troubled sector as traders mulled the prospects for a turnaround.
“The rally over the last week that largely has been driven by the drop in the price of crude oil and a major rebound in the financial sector naturally has prompted the question of whether the rebound has been too much, too soon,” said Gregory Drahuschak at Janney Montgomery Scott.
“The financial sector was so deeply oversold that a significant lift could have been expected at any point. We noted last week that the extraordinarily low earnings expectations for the banks set them up for a bounce if the dire expectations were not met. So far they have not been.”
Meanwhile a compromise reached by the White House and congressional leaders appeared to ensure passage of a major bill to provide billions of dollars in relief to the ailing US housing sector.
“The favourable news of an impending pass of a major housing bill is boosting shares of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae,” the government-sponsored but shareholder-owned mortgage finance giants, according to analysts at Charles Schwab & Co.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said President George W. Bush agreed to the plan to help deal with the crisis, despite a number of objections.
“The president would not have signed this bill if we had a lot of extra time on our hands. We don’t,” she said.
Fannie Mae shares rallied 11.8 percent to 15.00 dollars and Freddie Mac advanced 11.3 percent to 10.80.
Among the banks, Wachovia extended its surprising gains, climbing 5.1 percent to 17.65 dollars a day after rallying despite reporting a loss of more than 8.6 billion dollars.
Citigroup advanced 1.1 percent to 21.12 dollars and Bank of America added 3.4 percent to 33.44.
Among other stocks in focus, Pfizer increased 4.03 percent to 19.09 as the pharmaceutical giant and maker of Viagra and Lipitor said its second-quarter net profit more than doubled due to surging international sales and reaffirmed its 2008 outlook.
But Boeing fell 3.7 percent to 66.72 dollars after reporting a disappointing 19 percent drop in quarterly profits.
McDonald’s fell 0.77 percent to 59.66 dollars in a lukewarm response to forecast-beating results.
In technology, Yahoo fell 4.7 percent to 20.39 dollars as traders reacted to a disappointing earnings report from the troubled Internet giant.
Bonds dipped. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond rose to 4.148 percent from 4.097 percent on Tuesday while that on the 30-year bond increased to 4.700 percent from 4.663 percent. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
European stock markets posted solid gains, powered by positive corporate results, notably in the banking and auto sectors, and in response to falling oil prices.
In London the FTSE 100 index rose 1.60 percent to close at 5,449.90, while in Paris the CAC 40 added 1.88 percent to finish at 4,408.74. The Frankfurt Dax climbed 1.45 percent to 6,536.09. - AFP/de
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Tony Leung And Carina Lau Tie The Knot In Bhutan
HONG KONG: A marriage made in heaven? Or at least the mystical land of Bhutan anyway.
Hong Kong showbiz royalty Tony Leung and Carina Lau, clad in traditional Bhutanese costumes, tied the knot on Monday at the discreet Uma Paro resort, partly to escape the glare of the local paparazzi.
The wedding bash cost more than US$1 million, with Mrs Leung’s diamond ring worth some US$250,000.
46-year-old Tony Leung hinted to the media earlier this year that he was getting on in age, and that there would be wedding bells as soon as he could pin down a date.
Both had busy schedules.
Tony and 42-year-old Carina have been a celebrity couple for over 19 years.
Their marriage also caused Carina Lau to break her silence recently over nude pictures that surfaced in the tabloids back in 2002.
She confirmed that it was indeed the triads that abducted her and forcibly took pictures of her, because she did not agree to star in a movie financed by them.
More than 80 guests have been flown in specially to Bhutan from Hong Kong, China and Taiwan.
Guests included singer Faye Wong who performed for them on their special day. Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai directed the ceremony, and will possibly make a feature on it.
After the wedding, it’s off to a discreet honeymoon in Europe for the couple. - CNA/vm
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Sex Abuse Scandal Flares As Pope Prepares For Celebrations
SYDNEY : The scandal over child sex abuse by Catholic priests flared again on Wednesday as Pope Benedict XVI prepared to take centre stage at the world’s biggest Christian festival in Sydney.
While more than 200,000 young pilgrims attended beach concerts, barbecues and religious classes, the head of the church in Australia - Cardinal George Pell - faced a threat of confrontation by the parents of two victims of abuse.
The pilgrims are in Sydney for World Youth Day celebrations, which will be led by the pope from Thursday at the end of his four-day holiday at a retreat on Sydney’s outskirts.
But the scandal over sex abuse by corrupt clergymen has partly overshadowed the festival, despite the pope’s pledge to apologise to victims as he did in the United States in April.
The father of two girls abused by a Melbourne priest, one of whom committed suicide, has said he and his wife would travel back to Australia from Europe within the next few days for a confrontation.
Anthony Foster told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. he would not accept an apology unless the pontiff also changed the way the church and its lawyers dealt with victims of sex abuse.
“I want them to set up a system which provides lifetime help to victims, a system where they beg forgiveness of the victims,” he said.
Foster said he planned to make a public statement when he arrived and would demand a response from the pope and the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Australia, Cardinal George Pell.
He said he hoped the pope would meet him to hear his demands for the church to adopt a new approach to the victims of abuse.
“I should not have to try to see them. They should be coming to us to beg our forgiveness,” he said.
Foster’s daughter Emma, 26, committed suicide this year after struggling to deal with abuse by a priest while she was at primary school.
Her sister Katie was also abused and turned to alcohol in her teens before being left brain-damaged after being hit by a car while drunk, the broadcaster reported.
The priest involved, Father Kevin O’Donnell, died in 1997 after serving time in jail for multiple sex offences, but the Fosters had to fight an eight-year legal battle for compensation from the church for the abuse, ABC said.
World Youth Day coordinator Bishop Anthony Fisher told reporters at a regular briefing that most people were focusing on the positive aspects of World Youth Day “rather than dwelling crankily as a few people are doing on old wounds”.
But Pell later described the story of Emma Foster as “tragic”, saying he apologised to her and her family in 1998.
“I met with her parents. We offered them some financial help. We also offered them counselling,” he told reporters.
Broken Rites, a support group for victims of church-related sexual abuse, says that 107 Catholic priests and religious brothers have been sentenced in Australian courts on sex charges.
It accuses the church of hypocrisy by spending millions on World Youth Day when sex abuse victims are paid just 25,000 Australian dollars (23,500 US dollars) on average as compensation.
The pope, who has not announced when he will address the issue during his visit, was due to leave his semi-rural retreat for St Mary’s Cathedral House in central Sydney later Wednesday.
The 81-year-old pontiff, who has been recovering from jet-lag after the 20-hour flight from Rome, will make his formal arrival in Sydney in a 14-vessel “boat-a-cade” on the harbour on Thursday.
He is expected to be welcomed by crowds on spectator craft and harbour side vantage points before disembarking and addressing a gathering of around 100,000 pilgrims at Darling Harbour.
He will then take to his more traditional “Popemobile” for a tour of the city streets, which are expected to be lined with up to half a million people, organisers say.
Many streets were closed Wednesday and local residents were warned to stay out of the city, dominated by a flood of pilgrims from around the world.
- AFP/os
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